


All that glitters

by raviollie



Series: all-seeing sun [2]
Category: Beholder (Video Game), Beholder 2
Genre: Again, Canonical Character Death, Evan centred, I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 06:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19388200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raviollie/pseuds/raviollie
Summary: Accepting the truth is always a choice, but only a few could afford the alternative.Evan doesn't think about whether or not he would win, but he sticks to the story that he's only here to find out the truth.When the board flips, neither the scores or the players will matter, and he isn't sure if that certainty is hidden within the gentle glow and hollow gold in those eyes.





	All that glitters

**Author's Note:**

> Second installment of this series. I had a blast writing this (while drunk, as usual)  
> Made a few edits here and there to fix my beautiful, inebriated grammar and typos with everything else intact.  
> Hope you'll have fun reading it as I did writing it.

A harsh jolt slams a break on his thoughts. His eyes fly open, rapidly fading scenes in the sharp light leap and bounce back from the sudden halt.

  
Into nowhere. A surge of numbing pain rips through whatever it was that clung onto his consciousness and strikes the back of his eyes. He could feel people standing up. A child screams, crying out something incoherent. Someone coughs in the back. The sharp white flash feels more present than ever with the constant interruption of moving shadows and silhouettes floating high and low behind a thick veil of persisting numbness.

  
The child comes down from his screaming fit, distracted or tired. Someone apologises when a suitcase bounces a small hollow noise against his left arm. Another child starts crying now, a young man scolds her with a pitched nasally voice. A woman speaks to someone and laughs. A few groans coming from somewhere. He mumbles a sound wearily and squeezes his eyes shut once more, trying to clear away the clouding pain that’s beginning to throb in the side of his head. He doesn’t stand up. Everyone is already cramped in the aisle with too much luggage, and he’s in no mood joining in just so he could jump onto the platform a minute earlier.

  
The anticipation is making him sick. He wants to delay it as much as possible, but he doesn’t want to wait. He can almost hear this voice in his head-

  
**_WON’T YOU DO SOMETHING  
_ **

  
He can’t.

  
_You know I can’t._

  
He thought of the amount of people cramped in the aisle. Waiting for them to go through baggage check is going to take a long while.

  
Maybe I should try to get to the front.

  
He doesn’t want to think because he knows if he did he would have to go back to that deadlock with himself again.

**_YOU WON’T._ **

  
He tries to distract himself with thoughts on how difficult it must have been to acquire a ticket on this train and how it only runs so many times a year, not to mention the high execution rate on train conductors these days (Treason, so he always heard.) Besides, no one really has any business in the capital, and if they did, they’re planning on staying there for a long time. Unemployment and skipping lines in the ministry are illegal, after all.

  
Probably why everyone looks like they’re bringing their entire life’s worth with them.

  
He feels self-conscious for not having much with him. Two suitcases. All necessities. A one-way ticket dispensed directly from the ministry with department of order’s stamp on it, a stamped and signed job offer that cannot be legally turned down and a brass key with the address of an apartment lightly etched on the bow.

  
He glances pass the suitcase that had bumped into his elbow-

* * *

  
**_WRONG_**

  
He heard his own dry heaves before fully coming back to the darkness.

  
_What?_ He throws the question back to the voice.

  
**_WASN’T RIGHT  
_ **

  
_You’re not helping._

  
He could almost hear the voice snigger. **_I AM YOU._ **

  
_I know. Only you would wake me up in the middle of the night. I don't know why I even made you. Just to have fun talking with myself, I guess.  
_

  
**_SHUSHED. IN YOUR OWN HEAD._ **

  
_Still too loud for 3 in the morning. Get to the point._

  
**_WASN’T RIGHT_ **

  
He tunes out of his head for just a few seconds, enough to reconnect himself with his own gravity. Cold sweat clinging onto his bare skin along with the thin sheets, leaving a thread of faint unpleasantness hanging in the night air.

  
_Nothing is wrong._ He finally tunes in again. _You’re just too anxious. I’m just too anxious._

  
**_EVERYONE. EVERYWHERE. VIPERS IN THE DEN. THEY WANT TO HURT US. HURT YOU. IT ISN'T FAIR._ **

  
_It isn’t. They know what they're doing, but I'll figure it out soon enough. For the time being, we’re safe here._

  
**_WRONG.  
_ **

  
_So far we’ve been safe here. And that’s more than I could say about anywhere else in the capital._

  
**_EYES ON EVERY WINDOW, EARS ON EVERY WALL. YOU DON’T HAVE FRIENDS HERE._ **

  
_You're exaggerating. I haven't seen much of the ministry yet, and if nobody else, at least James is protecting me._

  
**_NOT FROM EVERYTHING, NOT FROM THE GAME_ **

  
_Exactly. That means I can’t afford to be paranoid. When I need to rely on myself, at least I know I can be brave, tactful._

  
**_COLD. SLIMY. CRUEL._ **

  
_I’m not a viper. I'm not like them.  
_

**_YOU WOULD IF YOU HAD THEIR FANGS_ **

_Even if I did, I wouldn't be like them. They already are ahead of the game, they have what I don't. It's not just power, you know. I don't have a place on the board, and I don't have much to lose if I were to flip it. That makes me different from every one of them._

  
**_BUT YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT PLACE_ **

  
_That’s not fair. You can’t blame me for trying to survive. Especially when I'm only here to find out the truth._

  
**_THE PRINCE OF VIPERS, THE KING OF DENIAL_ **

  
_Don’t you dare._

  
He wanted to go on, but can’t find a threat he could hurl at his own thoughts.

  
_**LEARN FROM EVERYONE IN THE DEN, EVAN. YOU'LL HAVE YOUR FANGS SOON ENOUGH.  
**_

* * *

He couldn’t make sense of it. One minute he's reading the headline of today's paper, next minute he’s on a train going to the capital.

Technically that gave him some time to process it. But the reality being what it is, just to internalise something like this is difficult in public, no matter how discreet or private you think you might be. He doesn't want to risk trying simply because he doesn't know what his reaction would be once it hits him.

_Grieve, I suppose. It's only natural._

There isn't any confidence in that line of thought, however. It's been a month and buried under all the papers, he still hasn't the time to really sit down and give himself enough time to think it through. He doesn’t know whether he would have grieved if he had the privilege to process it. He wasn’t lying when he told Hemnitz that his father’s death didn’t really affect him much. There wasn't an explanation, wasn't an excuse. It simply didn't.

It annoyed him that people don’t seem to understand that just because they had ties with his father it doesn’t mean they’re somehow entitled to judge him. Like everyone else, it was sudden, of course. He is here to investigate his father's death like a good son, but he can't tell anyone about it and they will continue to think that he's just here for his father's inheritance when it really is about finding out the truth.

He almost bit his tongue telling James that. He knew he said the right thing, however, because the man's face almost lit up, which also for some reason annoyed him.

  
He can't really lie to himself when it comes to this. It is about the truth and it isn’t. The Redgrave legacy could have meant nothing at all and if he loses one piece of the puzzle, it would be as valuable as his days old newspapers. He's here because James and Hemnitz had pinned the responsibility on him, and there's also that mysterious letter from his father. But frankly, the selfish version of the truth is that he wants to know not just what or who's responsible for his father's death, but what it was that’s been occupying his father’s mind for the past ten years.

The Heimdall project. When Hemnitz explained it to him, he could almost hear himself deflating.

Of course. A man in that position had to put that kind of ability and responsibility above a child. There was a choice, but it wasn't one that his father could afford to choose the alternative.

Hemnitz said that it had to be something that led to that ultimate falling off the building and intuitively he knows that, but for him every passing day when he tries to evict someone from their job, he has this somewhat awry moral pillar to lean onto: He has to know, not because he really cared to throw himself into situations like this, but because his father wasn’t the only victim of the Heimdall project.

  
He missed the funeral and let James took the blame, but he couldn't say that he didn't feel relieved.

The only side effect was that he had to take the apology from James, and somehow it hurt him when he saw the dimmed guilt-ridden light in James’ eyes but he couldn’t say a word.

He would have, if only James wasn’t a damned loyal friend to his father.

  
He couldn't help but think that James needed that funeral more than he did.

_If I were there, I wouldn't know where to put my hands if I were there._ He stares at the man in front of him, trying to process why he felt for this man he just met for about 2 minutes. _  
_

He doesn't really know if James would appreciate people coming around shaking his hands offering condolences.

  
‘I’m sorry for your loss’ they would have said ‘Caleb was a dear friend.’

  
‘Caleb was an honourable man.’

  
‘Caleb talked about you a lot.’

  
He’s had enough of that thrown in his face. The day before that when he met Hemnitz and did his first tour around the ministry, that was the end. He had to ask everyone about his father and pretty much all of them looked at him with either pity or morbid curiosity.

Ten years deprived of that presence when he tried to find his own way, and all of a sudden he’s drowning in all the information about his father that he never knew.

  
The more people talked about it, the less he feels like he knew the man.

  
‘Caleb,’ one time he almost snorted at a woman’s teary eyes when she spoke of Caleb with heaves and broken words, ‘The man who everyone just adored. I’m here to find out why Caleb was killed.’

  
It was surprising how that thought felt more than comforting.

  
Like the entire thing had nothing to do with him, not personally- Like he was just hired to play detective on some case that he would forget and return to his old life once it’s closed. Some man threw himself off a building. Didn’t look like suicide. He’s hired. He’s here to find out who when why what how.

  
Strangely enough, it’s thoughts like this that get him through the many nights when the voice in his head becomes the loudest.

  
Caleb’s dead. Caleb was a good, honourable man. Caleb was a dear friend to many people. Caleb had nothing to do with the man who was present in his life for a few years and disappeared completely with no explanations and left no closure. Caleb would never do that, of course. Caleb cared so much.

  
‘Caleb was such a great man.’

  
Their words annoy him, but the fact remains that he doesn’t trust them, not really. Their words are as hollow as the way they sound. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Coming from them it sounds exactly like the way they churn out the ‘you look great today’, the ‘good to see you’, and the ‘I’m doing well, you?’

  
He was angry, then he managed to tune it all out, now there's only mild confusion.

  
_What loss? What are you talking about?_

  
It’s becoming easier to filter it all away and his irritation grows thinner each day when being called as ‘Redgrave’ and stared at for that name and his resemblance to Caleb.

  
But he still finds it awfully difficult when he talks to James about it. He always has this worming feeling whenever he thought of James' connection with them creeps up.

  
Jarring, it feels.

  
James’ existence is exactly what he doesn’t need. It’s the only thing here that can link his present and past and he always is reminded of that every time they see each other. He threads between the father he knew and Caleb and that makes him exeedily uncomfortable. At first James would avoid the topic surrounding his father like a plague, which frustrated him, and now for some reason given half of a chance, James would go on and on about his father and then weave in stories about Caleb and he would be forced to combine those two into one person.

Whenever that happens he would feel sick to the stomach. Everything about it makes him nauseous, the stories he never knew, the person he never knew, the bloodline that suddenly became revered and James' damn eyes lighting up with a glint whenever he talks about that man.

  
If it were anyone else, he would have cut that off the first time around. Bare minimum, he would have brushed it off like he does so well these days and never let it hurt him as much as it does.

  
But somehow with James, he manages to hold it back, manages to be hurt every single time they meet and forces himself to pick up the phone whenever it rings.

He somehow still has this strange glimmer of hope that he may be able to expect James to see him as a living, breathing person other than ‘the son of my friend and colleague that I pretty much hired as a private detective.'

A thought suddenly strikes him.

_**YOU ARE THE SON OF THE MAN HE ACTUALLY WANTED  
** _

He barely made it to the bathroom before throwing up.

* * *

_That's not true._

  
Even for his age and position, James is impressively careful with his emotions and that makes it even more unbearable for him when the man chokes on Caleb's name with eyes that actually would shine like they were polished under sunlight.

  
James stops and gives him a quick, apologetic smile. The subject makes a stiff change.

He despises it. He despises it when James talks about his father, and he despises it when James tries so hard not to talk about his father.

  
He pretends he didn’t see the drowning weariness that’s eating the man alive and the thick, devouring half a second of trembling silence when James struggles to absorb all that’s been poured out towards just a single mentioning of his father’s name. He watches the light dies down in James' eyes.

  
He could do nothing but to sit there and listen. He stays quiet, but there's a sudden surge of anger spiking up, enough for him to have to make an effort not to slam the door when James leaves, enough for him to have to bite down on his lip not to let out anything he would regret saying.

  
He has to try and steady himself until the footsteps become inaudible. He steadies himself against the edge of the workstation until he feels his nails digging into the the old, varnished surface. He wants to scream, wants to go after James and pull the man in to look into his eyes and see who is in there because he needs James to understand that this is about him and not the man who decided to skip off a building and destroy everyone's life, leaving an entire city of vultures to him, hungry for blood.

Leaving James to him, broken.

He's not just a Redgrave, not just an existence that will eventually bear the mark of a martyr or a saviour.

He's not a golden effigy. A head on a silver plate. A bejeweled sacrifice.

He's not his father's son. He's not Caleb's son.

Because if he truly had a father, that man wouldn't have left him in this position, wouldn't have left James to him _like that._

  
If only he could scream, if only he could throw that in his father's face and somehow preserve that glimmer in James' eyes for himself because _I need it._

  
But he couldn’t.

**_YOU WOULDN'T._ **

  
The same day he gets an apology from James in his voicemail before nightfall. There isn't anything specific because phone calls are always monitored and James isn't too sanguine in the worst of times. James sounds like a completely different person trying to hide it in a stony voice, but he would always hear the sweeping sorrow in every word through the slightly distorted electric signal, and all of his pent-up anger cracks and shatters down his throat.

That's when he realises that James has the kind of sorrow that only one person could fix.

And it's not him.

And once again, he couldn't do anything about it.

  
In the moment of sheepishness, he realises that he has no right to go into James' personal feelings and the only reason he's here is that both James and himself wanted to find out the truth.

_**FOCUS, EVAN.** _

_Obviously the fact that I look like Caleb helps too._

**_FOCUS._ **

And that’s the only reason why James cared to visit him.

  
_**CALEB-**_

  
The only reason why James would even have him around at all.

**_CALEB DIDN'T PUT YOU IN THIS POSITION_ **

_But it's his fault. James was just desperate._

**_TELL HIM HOW YOU REALLY FEEL, THEN._ **

_I couldn't._

**_YOU WOULDN'T._ **

_NO. Because if I did-_

_**YOU WILL LOSE HIM AS WELL.** _

_And I wouldn't able to take it._

_**NOW YOU'RE GETTING IT.  
** _

  
_No. I'm just paranoid.  
_

  
**_YOU SAID IT YOURSELF. IT'S NOT REALLY ABOUT YOU._ **

  
_That’s not true. There has to be a part of me that he-_

  
**_REDGRAVE. YOUR BLOODLINE. YOUR FACE THAT LOOKS LIKE-_ **

  
_It’s more than that. I know that he trusts me as much as I trust him._

  
**_YET YOU WANT MORE._ **

  
_I don’t._

  
**_YOU CAN’T PRETEND FOREVER._ **

  
_I’m not pretending.  
_

**_THEN ADMIT IT._ **

_He does care about me._

**_NOT AS MUCH AS -_ **

  
_Don’t you dare mentioning that man's name.  
_

  
**_WANTING THE TRUTH AND CAN’T TAKE IT. ONE DAY YOU’LL HAVE TO._ **

* * *

Every time they meet, it’s always over death, torture, abuse. It’s getting easier on his conscience, especially after he found out ways to convince himself that it’s better them than himself.

He still winces from time to time at the bloodcurdling screams under the feet of James' subordinates who look like they would be able to tear down the entire ministry if they wanted to. At times like that, the most disturbing thing for him isn't the scene of violence, but how he would only see the face of the ministry of order on James.

Cold. Unflinching. Unwavering. It reminds him of the solid concrete walls that are protecting the ministry.

No moral quandaries, no hesitations, but too intimate with the system, too comfortable with his power and position.

Bound to the board.

  
‘I want you to be there.’ James would say, and looks at him with a soft hollow smile.

A gentle glimmer bounces off the golden rings in James' eyes that don't focus until all the way pass him, as if he didn’t actually exist. As if none of those were meant for him.

He closes his eyes.

_Why wouldn’t he call me Redgrave like everyone else?  
_

**_ASK HIM.  
_ **

  
_I couldn’t._

**_ONCE A COWARD, ALWAYS A COWARD_ **

  
_I don’t mind him calling me Evan. Nothing wrong in that. It' doesn't really matter anyway.  
_

  
**_IT DOESN'T, BUT FOR VERY DIFFERENT REASONS._**

_And what's that supposed to mean?_

**_YOU’RE AFRAID._ **

  
_Of what, exactly?_

  
**_OF WHAT HE MIGHT SAY IF YOU DID ASK._ **

  
_Again, it doesn’t matter. I am Evan to him and Redgrave to everyone else. I still own that name, mind you._

_I am THE Redgrave now._

  
_**BUT YOU ARE NOT HIS REDGRAVE.** _

He didn't manage to look into James' eyes when the man turned around towards the ministry with an army of subordinates following suit.

  
For a split second he wanted to see those eyes that never had his silhouette imprinted in the gold rings with the gentleness that’s never meant for him.

He feels the grey hollow sky above them starts to spin. He feels sicker than ever trying to drown the need to see that glint of light again.

Just once. Just more than once.

* * *

He forces himself to think. The man on the train with only an empty suitcase that bumped lightly into him, squeezing among everyone else's luggage piled to the top, self-conscious and confused.

He thinks of the first year of him living without his father, having too much trouble signing a lease, faking his father's signature.

He thinks of the first day he stepped into the ministry and the next day witnessing an execution along with the apathy in everyone's eyes.

Everyone else knows the game and plays it well because they’re already in it long before he came.

  
They claimed their own places on the board, they have everything he could ever wanted to win the game.

  
He's late and it isn't fair. He has no advantage, he can’t earn everything they were given. Not because he doesn't want to, he simply _can't._

  
But that doesn't matter.

_It isn’t fair. Caleb had so much and he never lost any of it after he's gone. He had everything I've ever wanted, long before I had the chance-  
_

  
**_IT DOESN’T MATTER. WHEN YOU FLIP THE BOARD, NONE OF IT WILL EVER MATTER._ **

_When I flip the board-_

**_YOU WIN, AND YOU LOSE.  
_**

‘I see.’ He doesn’t know if he sounds as tired as he truly is. Letting out even a word exhausts him, but he _couldn't_ just leave it there.

  
_**YOU'LL NEVER LIKE THE TRUTH BECAUSE THE TRUTH ISN'T FAIR.**_

  
‘I’ll come with you.’ He hears the complete defeat in his own voice and he doesn’t make an effort to hide it. James won't hear it, won't see his victory. Won’t like his victory.

A piece bound to the board. Self-destructive, maybe. Broken as broken goes. It doesn't make it easier for him, but it has to be done.

  
**_BUT YOU’LL HAVE TO ACCEPT IT._**

He will never be his father. But right now he forces himself not to think about it.

  
_**THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS THE TRUTH  
**_

It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.

_**AND THE TRUTH IS**  
_

_There is no winning in the game.  
_


End file.
